An Unconvincing Love Triangle

The success of Ishqiya is Arshad Warsi to a great extent and Naseruddin Shah to a good extent. The failure of Ishqiya is Vidya Balan. What can you say of a movie in which pretty much everything except the central (female) protagonist came together, where I can imagine the frustration of the perfectly good scriptwriter, editors, cinematographers, etc al, when the central character appears somewhat disinterested in the goings-on. Now to the plot. Arshad Warsi and Naseruddin Shah are “freelance” crooks – needing to repay a large sum on threat of their lives, they flee to a kindred soul’s home in northern UP near Gorakhpur, finding instead his widow. The three hatch a plot to get their required money, while the two men lose no opportunity at one-upmanship in winning Vidya Balan’s attentions. A dramatic and somewhat inconclusive ending wraps up this passable fare, that could have been an Omkara if only the cast cared. For a debutant (Abhishek Chaubey) this is great directorial fare, though Vishal Bharadwaj as producer fails to take the movie to a different plane

10.5/20

Doubly Brilliantly Executed

You may have seen Race. You may find the B&W Hollywood era a drag. You may not see the point of watching a movie that dates back to World War II, and stars Fred McMurray and Barbara Stanwyck (who???) All I have to say is, get out there and watch this movie. For this is character acting at its finest, with overtones of say Twelve Angry Men. Phyllis (Barbara) falls for insurance agent Walter Neff (Fred), and the two hatch a plot to effectively profit from a “Double Indemnity” clause in the life insurance policy of Phyllis’ husband, so kindly provided by Walter. The two work out an unlikely accident, and all is on track (literall), till Walter’s astute colleague Barton Keyes (Edward G Robinson), inch by inch, and with clinical examination of various hypotheses, finally unearths the plot. But this is not all – a lot of skeletons fall out of Phyllis’ cupboard, and in the end it is Walter and Phyllis staring at the just desserts for lives poorly led. Un-missable performances

15.5/20

Rann from the Press

Ram Gopal Varma produces an Indian morality tale that, by genre, should really belong to Madhur Bhandarkar (remember Page 3, Corporate and Traffic Signal… how did he miss the visual media??) In fact the undifferentiated clutter, mediocrity and one-upmanship that is the Indian TV news manufacturing industry was crying out for a solo performance in the likes of Page 3 and Mumbai Meri Jaan – and has got it now. Now to the movie Rann. Vijay Harshvardhan Malik (Amitabh) is the pliiar of ethicality in journalism, but his two sons – played by Rajat Kapoor and Sudeep respectively – are not. One motivated by the TRP wars and a personal battle for financial survival, the other rooting for an opposition leader’s scam and corruption tainted rise to prime ministership. Both of them almost implode their lives and the channel, and hand over the baton of the most respected news source to the competition. It takes a firebrand Ritiesh Deshmukh as the impressionable newbie to even things out – but not without some collateral damage. The story lacks originality in all respects, but the cast holds it together well. Notables - a great performance by Paresh Rawal, and some pretty provocative lyrics on the fly. BTW, a near empty hall on Saturday evening, second day, shows how enamored Mumbai is of morality tales

11.5/20

Easy Sell

If you have seen the brutal Indian “retail sales” culture firsthand, Rocket Singh: Salesman of the Year strikes an immediate chord. Harpreet Singh Bedi (aka Rocket Singh) is the quintessence of naivete and idealism (and that too not backed by great grades, as a trainee), and totally out of place in cutthroat computer retailer AYS (At Your Service) where sales clearly predominates over service. Things come to a head when Rocket Singh in all his innocence almost loses the firm a client whose liaison is clearly on the take. The firebrand in the Sardar takes over, he moonlights with a bunch of likeminded people and starts a renegade firm within the firm – Rocket Sales Corporation – that creates a proposition around impeccable service and very soon gets a small but valuable client audience. The encroachment is not lost upon ATS and its honchos – and Rocket Sales is unearthed and swiftly amalgamated. But not so the service culture and the loyal customers. This movie will strike a chord with anyone who has hated the quarter-on-quarter run rate and commission-driven sales culture. Not the least because Rocket Singh (Ranbir Kapoor) clicks as the naïve newbie with fire-in-the-belly beneath the baby face

13.5/20

More like “The Book of Conning Women”

Do you really want to know a rating for this movie? There is no possibility of really saying anything redeeming about American Pie Presents The Book of Love. This is a bunch of wasted American teenagers whose primary purpose in life is to get laid. Through a mix of faux-pas-es at house parties and various malls and other such, the dudes finally refine their strategy through stumbling upon a chain-diary of sexual escapades by the old masters. They connect with these dudes - many of whom are now captains of academia and industry (American kids always seem to have the time for this sort of thing..), and eventually score on a ski trip. There, you now know the plot. Now go watch something else

3/20

Super-Sleuths

Robert Downey Jr and Jude Law play unconventional super-sleuths as Guy Ritchie boldly re-incarnates Sherlock Holmes. At first (and, especially, not having read the graphic novel), it appears that this is a more of a mix of the typical graphic novel elements - mature themes encompassing the dark occult, complex relationships and the like - than vintage Holmes. The movie eases up after a while, and in the end, when all is clarified, you may be forgiven for having believed somewhere along the line that this was a bit too noveau a reincarnation. Irene Adler adds a classic touch to the melange, and the female leads as well as the villian and his retinue, are exceedingly well-developed characters. An easy watch, with new dimensions to offer on the central character, an out-and-out hit, and a great entertainer that does not falter

16/20

A Night to Remember

If you remember Bheja Fry, you realize that when Rajat Kapoor and Vinay Pathak team up, they could go wrong but not very wrong. Raat Gayi Baat Gayi is a low frills release from their stable – the first caught with his pants down lusting after a delectable Neha Dhupia at a party (did he? Didn’t he?..) and the second evicted from home for surfing porn. The two set out to unearth the truth and in the course of the same, many skeletons tumble out of the closet. Neither comedy nor drama, watchable but unmemorable fare

10/20

To the Moon and Back

Given that this is a private blog, I think the Moon deserves a closer description lest I forget later what this was all about (at the cost of giving away some of the movie’s secrets). I remember watching Solaris and 2001 and their ilk and the loneliness and silence of space, and I got that same eerie feeling all over when I saw Sam Bell (Sam Rockwell) at the fag eng of his 3-year long mining stint on the moon. Sam Bell ventures out to study a leak, and finds himself next at the sick bay in the base station. Ventures out again to the crash site, and finds himself – or a copy of himself – at the site – alive. Succeeds in hatching a plan to return to earth and succeeds in bringing the diabolical plans of The Lunar Corporation to light and put an end to the trauma of clone usage in the mines of the moon, all clones that have been implanted with memories of lives back on earth that were never theirs to begin with. A science fiction movie that is convincing, touching and flawlessly executed by Sam Rockwell in two concurrent avatars, and Kevin Spacey as the voiceover for GERTY, the resident robot who faces moral choices – and chooses right

15.5/20

And Here Are My Rankings (For Movies Released In 2009 And Reviewed Herein Under “2009”)) Under A Few Categories:

BEST MOVIE OVERALL: District 9

Comedy: The Hangover

Hindi: Kaminey

Drama: Taking Woodstock

Politics/ War: Inglourious Basterds

Thriller/ Action: Public Enemies

Graphic Novel/ Animation: Watchmen

Sci Fi: Star Trek

Bombs, Away

Like Enemy at the Gates (snipers), The Hurt Locker focuses on a single war-zone (Iraq, circa today) and one category of soldier (bomb detection squads). Unlike the morality tales like Lions for Lambs, The Kingdom and Body of Lies, there is no lesson purported to be delivered herein. This is about the intensity, and the role of each of the members of an elite bomb detection squad, in the heat of combat. Unavoidably, the groups gets embroiled in other aspects of war that is strictly not their domain, such as sniping across vast expanses of desert, or giving chase to bombers across dark urban alleyways in the dead of the night. The spirit of the group is epitomized by Sgt Matt Thompson – who returns injured and cussing from the epicenter of battle to home and family, and then in an epiphanic moment in a supermarket, decides to return to the Bravo Company for another 365 day stint at what he really loves doing. Great “action” sequences delivered with a deliberate lack of melodrama

14.5/20

A Perfect Little Movie

You may actually like A Perfect Getaway, if for no better reason than the fact that there is nothing obviously wrong with the movie. Cliff and Cydney (Steve Zahn and Milla Jovovich) and Nick and Gina (Timothy Olyphant and Kiele Sanchez) are two couples doing the long hike across a Hawaiian island, and strike up a friendship. And a (reasonably predictable) twist later, the couples find themselves in a race against time and each other on the island. A fact paced movie, reasonably believable, well-acted, uncomplicated, low-engagement, and with a comely cast. Time-pass fare and decent, even

12/20

Get The Formula Right

And how much better could London Dreams have been only if the music was right! In a country where, as far as I can make out, people are falling over each other trying to out-sing each other on every single (of two dozen) TV channels every single night, to have sub-standard music in a movie where the core is supposed to be musical talent, is a travesty that is unforgivable (and the audience did not forgive – this was one of 2009’s quiet deaths). And then there is the cast. Salman Khan is great as the foil who becomes the lead, Ajay Devgan is watchable, Asin – the third key character in the movie – has nothing to do except jive on stage with the group and show her obvious lack of fit for the role. London Dreams should have spent time studying Rock On and its likes to figure out what made these movies click – spending a bomb on the sets is no excuse for a surprisingly bad job

5/20

Normal Activity

There is nothing much wrong with Paranormal Activity. It is just that the horror genre is becoming woefully bereft of any fresh ideas. Yet again there is a movie that chooses to place you in a familiar setting – a regular couple in a regular affluent American suburb, and the gradual changes in their lives on account of an increasingly intensifying haunting. The “lack of originality” problem is compounded by the average cast and the truly mediocre script (for one, find the burning curiosity of a day trader continuing his incessant surreptitious solo investigation of a phenomenon that does not really concern him, less than believable). End of the movie, I felt boredom with the horror genre itself. Post Mirrors, I cannot think of a single movie in the horror genre that has not been an out and out disappointment

7/20